Yarra Park surrounds the area reserved for Australia's best known sports ground, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (or MCG), host venue for the Opening and Closing ceremonies and athletics competitions of the Commonwealth Games of 2006.

These parklands at the edge of the city are part of the ring of greenery – along with Birrarung Marr, Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, the Domain and the Royal Botanic Gardens – that form the City of Melbourne's southern and eastern borders.

Other venues in this sports and entertainment precinct include the Rod Laver and Vodafone arenas, Olympic Park and the Punt Road Oval.

The William Barak pedestrian bridge links Yarra Park with the CBD, offering splendid views of the city and an easy 10 - 15 minute walk through the parkland of Birrarung Marr along the northern bank of the Yarra River.

Special features of Yarra Park include:

• Melbourne Cricket Ground;
• views of Kings Domain and Government House;
• the Queens Walk shaded by an avenue of English elms;
• sculptures of famous sporting identities circled around the MCG;
• a playground with a sporting theme near the Jolimont railway station;
• plantings of London plane trees, Dutch elms, oaks, desert ash and eucalypts;
• pedestrian bridges above the railway lines that link Yarra Park with the tennis centre and sports arenas;
• 'The Legend’, an abstract, modern three dimensional sculpture of steel and bronze over six metres tall; and
• two scarred trees more than three hundred years old, their 'scars' left when aboriginal people removed bark for canoes.

View location map and facilities